Sidebars Archives - Page 4 of 194

June 13, 2026

Giving a flounder time to grab a bait and get it ready to slide down its throat will usually result in a good hookset.

How to hook a flounder

Flounder are gregarious fish. If they bit like redfish, you’d regularly see a lot more flounder in magazines and on social media. […]

Tony Rhodes gigged this flounder in the New River near Sneads Ferry, N.C.

It’s an all-night gig

Mike Marsh

It is not often that a recreational trip to procure fish begins well after dark. However, guide Allen Jernigan met a friend, Tony Rhodes, at a ramp in Sneads Ferry, N.C., at 9:30 p.m. […]

Suspending a live shrimp beneath a popping cork is a tried-and-true trout-catching tactic.

Like skinning a cat, there is more than one way to rig a live shrimp to catch speckled trout. The old standby is a length of leader beneath a stemmed popping cork, sometimes referred to as a rattling cork. Even with a popping cork, some anglers prefer to use a standard J-hook, while other may opt for a Kahle hook or circle hook and still others a jighead. […]

Five shrimp tricks to try on trout

Phillip Gentry

Speckled trout eat shrimp throughout their life, starting as fry and continuing through the gator years.
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Kevin Davis has weighed in plenty of huge blue catfish on the scales at his business, Blacks Camp.

Trophy cats: a biological perspective

Terry Madewell

Chad Holbrook, a fisheries biologist for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources who oversees the Santee Cooper lakes, said biologists use winter gill-net sampling to assess blue catfish populations and, the data shows increasing catch rates from 2016 through 2018. […]

Double surgeon’s or Albright knots are two good ways to join different segments of line to keep from having to use a swivel.

Hide live-bait gear from sharp-eyed Spanish

Jeff Burleson

For anglers to be successful, the target-of-the-day must be kept in the dark from the angler above, yet some fish don’t seem to care or are too involved in feeding to recognize the meal they are getting ready to eat has a razor-sharp hook hanging out. […]

The top spots for rabbits

Craig Holt

Three subspecies of rabbits — cottontail, marsh and Appalachian — inhabit North Carolina. Cottonails thrive in early-successional habitat (cutovers) that afford cover and safety from avian and ground predators. […]

Restrictions and bag limits are almost non-existent for white perch. The fish are an invasive species and considered a nuisance by most states in the southeast.

Year-round white perch

Phillip Gentry

While guide Zakk Royce confines most of his perch fishing to Lake Gaston along the North Carolina-Virginia border, you’d be hard-pressed to name any reservoir in North Carolina’s Piedmont or South Carolina’s Midlands that isn’t chock full of them. […]

Hunting

Public-land squirrels abound

Craig Holt

North Carolina is home to four varieties of squirrels — gray, fox, red/Appalachian and flying — hunters target all of them except fliers. Gray squirrels are ubiquitous at all forests that have a substantial number of hardwood mast trees. […]

Don’t give up on doves after Labor Day

Jeff Burleson

For many hunters, the first day of dove season is often also the last day. But you can find plenty of great dove hunting after that with these tips. […]